Thank you for reading the Diederich College of Communication’s “Communic8” blog. We will be closing this blog as of October 2012, but will be maintaining an active presence on our other social media platforms—Facebook, Twitter, Flickr and YouTube—where we invite our readers to connect with us.

In order to preserve the content of this blog, we will also be creating an archive of past posts on our website. Please watch http://diederich.marquette.edu for a full archive of this blog (coming soon).

The Diederich College of Communication blog will be on hiatus for the remainder of the summer, and will resume during the fall 2012 semester. Please join us in August when we return with new posts by our students, staff and faculty.

With the recent passing of science fiction author Ray Bradbury last week, we decided to post a photo celebrating the author. Bradbury, best known for his book “Fahrenheit 451” (which promoted the ideals of freedom of speech and thought), was truly one of the great American literary contributors of the 20th century.
In remembrance of Ray Bradbury, here is a photo of the author on a past visit to Marquette.

With the recent academic year now behind us, the focus for new graduates shifts towards the future. For many young people with newly minted degrees, this will be the time to go out into the world equipped with ambition and enthusiasm as they search for that first full time job and begin climbing the career ladder.

With recent discussions in the media centering around the challenge faced by many young people to find meaningful employment, the topic of building an arsenal of versatile life and career skills is an especially relevant one. How can the educational system best equip young people to meet these challenges?

Piracy seems to be the hot topic of this generation, due to the rise of digital media making everything worth pirating infinitely more accessible (whether legitimately or not).

For example, eReaders like the Nook and Kindle will let a customer buy eBooks simply enough, but at the same time, a quick Google search can find most any book in an eReader-compatible format with no copy protection. Consumers can rely on iTunes for musical needs, but if you can hear a song, chances are you can get it for free one way or the other. Streaming video services such as Netflix, Hulu, or Amazon Instant Video give viewers several attractive options other than cable TV or buying individual DVDs, but a few hours with BitTorrent can do the same thing.

In the video game industry, it’s still common to buy a game in a physical store. Lately, however, games are becoming increasingly available through digital distribution (and even before that) it is easy to play old classics through emulators on your computer.

So, why do people pirate media? There are actually many reasons aside from the black-and-white “they want this piece of media without paying just to spite the artist/author/producers.” One perfectly legal reason is for the purpose of owning a digital backup of media that you already own. People may pirate because by buying something digitally, you don’t truly “own” it, but rather, you own a license to use it. With physical media, it doesn’t matter if you read a book or turn it into paper-mache, but if Amazon, Apple, or even Nintendo feel they have a good enough reason to, they could suspend your account and “brick” your device of choice. Then what happens to the media that you purchased? Sorry, you no longer have the rights to it, and don’t expect a refund. The people pirating just want some assurance that their media library won’t disappear because someone tried to hack their account.

Perhaps the most common (and the most morally gray) reason is a simple matter of “try before you buy.” A pirate might download the pilot episode of a series—one of a singer’s many albums, or the first installment of a book or game series—and then go back for the rest legitimately because they liked it so much. If you go to The Pirate Bay on any given day, there’s a good chance that an obscure singer/band has purposely put one of their albums up for grabs specifically to invoke this phenomenon.

Despite all the rationalizations, piracy is still ultimately a bad thing. So how do we fight it? Video Game journalist Jeff Gestmann once made the insightful quote, “You have to be easier and more convenient than free. You have to compete with free.” As mentioned earlier, many pirates do what they do because purchasing legitimately only creates hassles with licensing. Many music artists have adopted a business model where the consumer pays for copy-protection free music, eliminating both that particular hassle and the problem of overpriced digital media.

With video games, designers can get creative with how they handle pirates. For example, in the PC version of “Batman: Arkham Asylum,” if a pirated copy is played, Batman will spontaneously lose the ability to turn his cape into a hang-glider about an hour in, making completing the game impossible. The pirate gets just enough playtime to decide whether or not to buy it legitimately, and this tactic effectively cuts them off if they try to continue past the “trying it out before deciding” period.

Here’s a general code of ethics for digital pirates:

Never pirate movies, and only rarely, TV shows. Many shows can be legitimately obtained with Netflix and Amazon Prime memberships.

Look for unprotected eBooks as digital backups of books you already own legitimately. People need to read more, and libraries are starting to become rare.

Only pirate older games. If the game companies no longer make money from people buying the game, it’s their own fault for not putting them up for digital distribution. To compensate for the “minor” piracy of older games, only buy modern games new. Even if you can save a few dollars by buying used, it’s good to show support for the people who take time and effort to create these games. If you do manage to pirate a modern game, consider buying it legitimately later.

Spread your favorite finds by word of mouth rather than by sharing files. If I tell a friend about an album I love, they’re more likely to buy it than pirate it, and hopefully continue spreading the word as well.

If the legitimate media is filled with obstructions in the name of counter-piracy, don’t even try it. We need to show the world that competing with the pirates is more lucrative than trying to stamp them out completely.

John Kamerer is a Resident Einstein in the Wakerly Technology Training Center at Marquette University.

This past April, Marquette University and the Diederich College welcomed over 50 corporate communication professionals as we hosted the first ever Corporate Communication Commons event on campus. The conference, entitled Building a Corporate Conscience, examined one of the most pressing issues in today’s corporate world: the lack of public trust in corporations.

The event kicked off on the evening of Thursday, April 19 with a student networking session led by Diederich College faculty member Jeremy Fyke. During the session, students had the opportunity to discuss topics such as career/college challenges and community involvement with corporate communication professionals. Afterward, the conference participants visited the jPad student lounge for an opening reception. Dean Lori Bergen welcomed the participants to the conference, and Associate Professor Sarah Feldner introduced the purpose of gathering a group of peers to discuss the common issues faced in the field of corporate communication.

On Friday, the day began with a breakfast keynote by Richard Edelman, who reflected on the need for communications professionals to become the conscience of their organizations. The message was that if people in this role are willing to actually advise the executives, they have the power to truly change organizations from within and win back public trust.

This message set the tone for the rest of the day’s presentations, and was also echoed in the words of other speakers. Kimberley Goode used Northwestern Mutual as example of how a company can thrive if it has a commitment to values and trust. In contrast, Roger Bolton mentioned Aetna as example of both what to do and what not to when trying to create a successful and trusted organization.

Other topics that emerged throughout the day included the need for corporate transparency, the use of social media, and developing a new communication model for organizations. The use of social media was a salient topic as many of the participants were tweeting throughout the day, using the #mucommons hashtag. The event concluded with “Diederich Ideas, a 30-mintue program featuring a panel discussion with the participants about the future of corporate communication.